Small animals or creatures, such as insects, spiders, beetles, etc. are generally undesired in certain locations, e.g. in living quarters for human beings, food storage areas, etc., and therefore must be removed from these places. However, such creatures are interesting instructional observation objects in particular for small children. In these and similar cases the creatures optimally are trapped and following transportation to an appropriate location or after observation are released uninjured into the countryside.
As the catching of such insects by hand is not always successful and problems occur both for the human being and the insect when the latter is picked up with the fingers, devices and equipment have been developed for facilitating the picking up of the insect and prevents direct contact between the human being and the insect, whilst excluding any risk of injury for both parties.
In a known device of this type (German Utility Model 90 12 348.4) a catching apparatus open at the bottom is connected on the rear wall to an upwardly bent grip or handle, in which is guided a flexible, plastic or steel foil slide plate and by means of an operating button movably arranged on the grip can be displaced, in order to close with the flexible slide plate the catching opening of the catching apparatus, after the latter has been inverted over a creature to be caught and the in this way trapped, uninjured creature can be released again, if desired, at another location after observation and/or transportation. The guidance of the flexible slide plate from the grip to the catching opening takes place in a twice, oppositely bent (curved) path between webs arranged perpendicular to the grip and in a U or L-guide in the catching apparatus.
The handling of this known device causes problems in that the very thin, flexible slide plate under the action of the pushing force on its twice reversed curved guide path tends to bulge and camber, so that it is not always possible to ensure the function of the sliding mechanism and in particular the correct closing of the catching opening. However, a thicker closing element would make the sliding process more difficult and would also not ensure the uninjured reception of the insect or creature to be trapped.
The handleability of such known devices is also impaired in that the width of the grip corresponds to that of the catching apparatus and therefore either the grip or handle is too wide and the device is made uneasy to handle, or the catching apparatus is too narrow and therefore inappropriate for the catching process. There are also manufacturing problems in the case of these known devices.
The present invention addresses these and other problems, and provides an easily manufactured and assembled device of the aforementioned type in such a way that easy handling is ensured during catching, accompanied by an injury-free reception of the creature and a troublefree operation of the closing mechanism.